Outpatient physiotherapy visits down but priority patients, others on wait lists

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This article was published 10/10/2017 (3155 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A decline in outpatient physiotherapy visits isn’t indicative of less need, says the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, but rather how efficient the soon-to-be slashed programming has become.

“We’ve been really focused on how do we support individuals and build confidence in those individuals so they can continue their therapeutic plan at home and not solely rely on our PTs,” said Krista Williams, chief health operations officer with the authority.

The WRHA employs fewer than three dozen physiotherapists to handle tens of thousands of outpatient physiotherapy appointments each year.

And while the number of visits has dropped from nearly 73,000 during the 2010-11 fiscal year to a little more than 61,000 in the most recent fiscal year, there are still hundreds of people on the waiting list.

In fact, right now there are 27 people on the priority wait list, meaning their acute injury requires more immediate attention; 212 others are on the non-priority list.

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To help keep people moving up the lists, Williams said the program has focused more on group work in recent years, bringing patients with similar injuries together for education and exercises. Group work, she noted, is also a likely culprit for the declining visit numbers.

It’s also one of the reasons why Bob Moroz was caught off guard by the WRHA’s move to cut the service.

Moroz is president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, which represents the majority of Winnipeg outpatient physiotherapists.

There was recognition, he said, among the physiotherapists and the other health-care workers his union represents that the recommendations put forward health-care system transformation consultant Dr. David Peachey would mean “some pain and some alterations.”

“I’m not against making the system more efficient and more affordable,” he told the Free Press last week. But group therapy, he noted, is not just beneficial, but also cost-efficient.

It’s not clear what will happen to such programming when the WRHA closes the bulk of its outpatient physiotherapy services in the coming months.

Limited public programming will remain for certain individuals who meet select clinical criteria, but everyone else will be connected with private providers. While the WRHA is still finalizing the clinical criteria, Williams said those who currently qualify for the priority wait list will likely meet it in the future.

“We’ve looked at those high-priority kind of cases and we’re incorporating that into the clinical criteria to make sure that those who really need it continue to get that service,” she said.

There will be an appeals process so patients who feel they’ve been unfairly cut off from the public service can argue their cases, she said.

“We’ll have that process in place so we can review cases and allow service provision if we feel that it’s clinically necessary.”

 

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca